


Oaths and Transformations

by Kiiratam



Series: Blake's Fanfiction [5]
Category: RWBY
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, F/F, Fanfiction, Meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-26
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:28:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23862295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kiiratam/pseuds/Kiiratam
Summary: An unauthorized work in the Ninjas of Love Universe (Please don't sue me! I love your books!)Miko of the Chameleon Clan begins to practice with her gift of transformation, while pondering the oaths she has sworn.Part 3 of ?.By BlackCat13.(No idea how this is going to work with the CCTS down. I'm going to try to keep writing and updating, but... well, no promises. Sorry.)((Takes place the night before Volume 4, chapter 3. (My BMBLB fic index)))
Relationships: Blake Belladonna/Yang Xiao Long
Series: Blake's Fanfiction [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1526540
Comments: 8
Kudos: 24





	Oaths and Transformations

It was a quiet thing, the breaking of faith.

  
Miko had expected the sky to tear when she made her oath to the Devil Dragon in Iron. An oath to betray the wishes of Lady Yue. A blasphemy.

  
But the skies had remained cheerful, warm sunlight radiating down on the rolling green hills of the western reaches. Songbirds flitted along their path, crying out their love and longing in sweet melodies.

  
The Devil Dragon snatched a blue-winged bird from the air, and Miko's eyes paled to a cowardly yellow. Her monster was going to eat this helpless, innocent creature, and Miko couldn't even raise her voice in objection.

  
Sacrifices had to be made. Allowed.

  
Miko lowered her eyes and kept walking, tensing her ears to block out the noises of feasting.

  
All she heard was more birdsong. In her willful ignorance, she decided that it sounded better like this. That bird had been adding discordance. That was why the Devil Dragon had chosen it. There was a purpose, beyond mundane hunger, or unslaked bloodlust.

  
Miko told herself it was better this way.

  
But... there was a new song in the symphony. One sung at a much lower register than the rest.

  
She turned around, and saw the Devil Dragon singing at the blue-winged bird she held in her palm. The bird cocked its head, and sung it back at her. Smiling, Miko's monster said to the bird, "Go forth, seduce all the prettiest birds."

  
It bobbed its head in a bow and launched itself back into the air, singing the Devil Dragon's song. And in its wake, all the other birds took to the sky, following it.

  
Her eyes white with astonishment, Miko stared at her monster.

  
The Devil Dragon took several long strides forward, catching up to her mistress. And glanced down at her. "It is only a trifling spell. No great gift."

  
Miko didn't know what to say. She started walking again, hoping it would jog her mind into motion. After a hundred paces of silence, she managed to ask, "Why?"

  
"Was I not a god? I am ever ready to hear lamentations, that I might act." Laughing, the Devil Dragon clinked her golden bracelets together. "I am out of practice, so I must start small. Helping a lovelorn bird is no great deed, but it readies me for the future."

  
It was curious, to think of the Devil Dragon in Iron as a benevolent god. Miko had grown up to stories of her as one of the terrors of the Hells - bound by the gods, but only so long as mortals offered them proper obsequiences. 

  
Her monster nudged her gently, nearly sending her careening off the path. "Why do you ask, Oh Benevolent Jailer of Mine? Did you have a prayer to offer?"

  
Miko swallowed, trying not to linger on the image of prostrating herself before the Devil Dragon.

* * *

Blake lowered her scroll, rubbing at her eyes. Keeping quiet in her berth on the ship.

  
_Why am I even doing this? It's late, and it's not working, and where am I even going with this? Why did Miko just throw everything away because the Dragon told her side of the story? Is she really that gullible?_

  
_Yes, yes I am._

  
_I'm not Miko._

  
_No, that's right. Everyone she knew died, and no one liked her. I just ran away from home because I was a gullible idiot who read too many romances. And Miko's still going to avenge the deaths of her clan. I'm just going crawling back to my parents. Who I told I hated, and never wanted to see again._

  
_And what even am I doing with the Dragon? Is she a remorseless killer, or does she flounce through fields of wildflowers, chatting with wildlife?_

  
_Is she Adam or Yang?_

  
_Breathe in, hold it, breathe out._

  
_The Dragon is the Dragon. She's not Yang, Miko isn't me. It's a story. Just a story._

  
Blake wasn't sure if she believed herself. But it wasn't like she was going to be able to sleep. And it was better to struggle with her story than -

  
She didn't let herself think about what had happened. The only thing that leaked through as she started writing again was that the CCTS was down, so regardless of how bad her story was, not everyone was going to be able to read it.

* * *

  
She was a priestess of Lady Yue, she was supposed to be pure in thought and action. And not devote her attentions to another being, mortal or divine. Or infernal.

  
Miko, in a dark and unswept corner of her mind, wondered if defiling herself with the Devil Dragon would be blasphemy or idolatry. Or simply succumbing to carnal temptation.

  
It wasn't any of those, Miko told herself firmly, because she wasn't going to do anything. She wanted to chant one of the mantras of her youth, warding off her foolish, childish desires - but the Devil Dragon would hear. She'd know precisely what sort of effect she was having on Miko. And, even more than she already had, Miko would lose control of the situation.

  
Miko cast about for a distraction, anything to change the subject.

  
And found it in a few plumes of smoke curling up from around the next hill. A village. They had avoided all of them so far. The villages had been haunted by Spider Clan kill teams, or at least informants, and Miko was not such a fool as to throw away the element of surprise. Her vengeance would come out of the west and smite the Spider Clan - but the longer they wallowed in ignorance, celebrating their triumph over the Chameleon Clan, the more confident Miko would feel.

  
But they were starting to run low on necessities. And Miko missed the sound of people around her. They had traveled in silence, mostly. The Devil Dragon seemed content to survey the world from which she had long been absent. And Miko was pushing herself too hard in the journey to make conversation. Sun-up to sun-down, trying not to dwell on the faces of everyone she'd lost. Everyone she'd failed. Everyone she would avenge.

  
Even a few moments in the market would help restore her - listening to the idle, unimportant chatter of the townsfolk, unbowed by the burdens Miko labored under. For those moments, she could forget her duties, her blasphemies, her vengeance, and drift in mundanity.

  
Miko turned to the Devil Dragon in Iron. "We're going into the village ahead. Conceal your face and form. We do not wish to frighten the common folk."

  
The Dragon rasped out laughter, like whetting a knife. "They are always frightened. For their crops, their children, their livelihood." But still she cast her cloak over her shining steel hair and wrapped herself more thoroughly in it. But not nearly well enough. Miko could tell that at a glance, for arterial red eyes gleamed at her from within the shadows of the hood.

  
Sighing, Miko asked, her eyes like golden coins, "Could you keep that baleful gaze fixed on the ground?"

  
Bowing low, and contriving a ripe display within her gown for Miko to stare upon, the Dragon said, "As my Mistress wishes."

  
Miko knew she was being mocked. Or tempted. Caught up in the games of the Devil Dragon of Iron, outmatched by an evil older than her family line.

  
But a tame evil. Harnessed, at least. Miko accepted that the Devil Dragon was fresh to her bonds, and they chafed. And Miko was not unsympathetic. Especially given her oath to the Dragon. Incanting the mantra of punishment for such a small thing... Miko was unused to the power she held over the Dragon. She did not much care for the taste of it.

  
Forcing herself to consider practical matters, she stooped and picked up several small stones from the roadside. Miko concentrated on the luster of bronze, the taste of it, how it sounded when jangled on a string. She opened her hand and looked at the coins in her hand.

  
The Devil Dragon peered over her shoulder. "You have forgotten the markings."

  
Miko still wasn't used to her power. But she'd just transfigured pebbles to coins, and the Dragon was complaining that she'd missed details? She nearly spun around and pelted her monster with the coins.

  
"My people always put my reignal year on their coins. I could show you the exact characters. Say you plundered them from a ruin."

  
Taking a deep breath, Miko considered. The Devil Dragon was trying to help. Had volunteered to help, without requiring an order. That was new. "Very well. Show me."

* * *

  
Blake curled herself into a tight ball, pressed into the corner of her berth. She left her scroll open on her pillow.

  
_It's terrible and I hate it and why am I even writing this?_

  
_It hurts._

  
She wasn't sobbing over it, waking everyone else up. But it was taking effort that Blake wasn't sure she wanted to spend.

  
_For the future._

  
_I have to do this for the future. I want to have something to give to Yang when I see her again._

  
_After all of this is over._

  
_Somehow._

  
_After someone else finishes this, because I can't, because I'm running away again-_

  
_Breathe in, hold it, breathe out._

  
_I'm not running away. I can't run away. I know that now. Adam's going to chase after me. I'm just falling back, drawing his attention._

  
_Giving Yang time to recover._

  
_I'm protecting her._

  
_She spent all that time helping me get better, and it wasn't a waste. It wasn't._

  
_But she got hurt trying to protect me. I owe her. Adam would kill her just to hurt me._

  
_Breathe in, hold it, breathe out._

  
_But not if he's too busy trying to find me._

  
_I'm not Yang; I can't stand still and take a hit like she can. But I can still help._

  
_Breathe in, hold it, breathe out._

  
Blake uncurled enough to grab her scroll, and picked up where she'd left off.

* * *

  
The two of them rounded the last curve, and the village and its terraced rice patties came into sight. A cloud loomed before the sun, casting everything in occlusion. Despite that, Miko's eye was still able to pick out details. This far from the great cities, it was not surprising that the village was small. There were only a few clusters of buildings around a small green, on which a few goats grazed. And on a small rise overlooking the nearby stream, there was a shrine decorated in an almost familiar mode.

  
Miko wondered if they would even take her coins. Did tax collectors even come this far west? Was this village crammed on the edge of some great map in the capital, the farthest tributary of the empire? Or had she already passed out of the empire, without even being conscious of her departure?

  
She was torn from her reverie by the Devil Dragon's hand on her shoulder, squeezing uncomfortably tight. Miko's mind divided and raced apart - half conscious of the terrible power of her monster, nausea and fear rising at the memories of the Spider Clan murderers that had been literally torn apart. The other half was also filled with fear - though perhaps 'awe' was a better word for it. Awe, and a swirl of decidedly impure thoughts that wanted the Devil Dragon to throw her to the ground with those strong, strong arms, and-

  
"Mistress, look." Her monster pointed, her nails gleaming dully in the sun. "They're sending a delegation out to meet us."

  
It was true. Miko pushed her confusion away - helped by her monster releasing her shoulder - and focused on the handful of villagers that were hustling closer. They were all older - gray- and white-haired, though not so old as to grow feeble, as evidenced by their hasty pace.

  
She stopped, to let them approach. Miko wasn't sure of their intentions - unlikely to be hostile, since she saw no weapons, but going out to meet a visitor was curious. Especially since Miko bore no weapons (aside from the killing knife hidden in her robes), and, hunched over as she was, the Devil Dragon almost didn't appear to be a threat. 

  
As the delegation came closer, they hailed her. "Priestess! Priestess, a boon! In the name of Lady Yue, a boon!"

  
It took Miko a moment to realize how they knew her allegiance. But, feeling like a fool, she remembered that her clothing was still the sacred blue and white. She had bled all over it, but Lady Yue had restored it. It wasn't even travel-stained, despite the dusty roads.

  
She swallowed, passing over the blasphemies she had sworn and contemplated, and called back to them. "Approach." A boon, they asked for. She was obligated to assist - to magnify the glory of Lady Yue - but there were libraries of debate on how much assistance she should render, what offering they were bound to render to her and Lady Yue... Miko tried to to bring all of it to mind, but she had never been a great scholar, and she had never expected to travel far from Chameleon Clan lands, where the obligations of clan weighed heavier.

  
The delegation came closer, collapsing into a kowtow to her. The leader raised her head far enough from the ground to be comprehensible. "Priestess, a terrible flying beast bedevils our village! We beg you, banish it to the hell from which it was spawned! We will give you all that you require for your journey, and will pledge fourteen disciples to Lady Yue over the next seven years, if you will deliver us!"

  
Miko considered. She herself had never banished a demon, not even a minor one. Of course, everyone in the clan received some combat training, but Miko had thought she was going to have a quiet life tending Lady Yue's shrines. Perhaps ministering to those of her clan exhausted by the feuding dance.

  
But... maybe she could help. And if Miko couldn't accomplish anything with her priestly training, or her still blossoming powers of transmutation, the Devil Dragon of Iron would be more than willing to assist with her unholy strength and prowess.

  
Blowing out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding, Miko addressed the elder who had spoken. "I accept, on behalf of Lady Yue. I will free you from the desolations of this beast. Where does it keep its lair?" And as she asked, a cloud hove before the sun, casting everything into shadow.

* * *

"Why did you not bargain with them?" The Devil Dragon in Iron was still swathed in her cloak, but she was carrying her pack before her, looking at the rice they had been given with a critical eye. "We do not benefit from your Lady Yue gaining more acolytes."

  
"I... I don't need to justify my actions to you."

  
The Devil Dragon snorted. "Indeed not, for they are written in the shifting colors of your eyes. The Celestial Powers do not reckon debts like reasoning beings, priestess. You cannot purchase your freedom from Lady Yue with fourteen lives of service. Or fourteen thousand. You are hers, and that is the end of it."

  
Miko's shoulders slumped, and her eyes faded to a cowardly yellow. "What we did earlier - I don't know if I can keep my oath." Her blasphemous oath.

  
"Of course, Exalted Mistress. Even I know that oaths made to slaves are false. You will not free me, you will not turn on the one who holds your leash." The Devil Dragon pulled her cloak back enough to expose one of her golden manacles and scraped an iron nail over it, setting it to singing. "I am bound in a golden charm, and the dweomers laid on you are invisible. But no less potent for that."

  
She was right. A lifetime of service to Lady Yue - however short and unimpressive that life had been so far - was set against a hasty oath made to a fiend, in a moment of weakness and doubt.

  
Miko had expected anger from the Devil Dragon, charring breaths of colorless fire. For her to whet her iron talons against each other, as she had done during lulls in combat. That the Devil Dragon was so calm - that she had _expected_ Miko to break her oath, that it wasn't even worth getting angry over... She came to a halt, nausea curdling in her stomach. 

  
Why was this sickening her? Lady Yue had given her the Devil Dragon in Iron as a tool, a weapon to clear a path to the West and back again. Lady Yue had trusted her to control this monster of the elder world with a mantra of punishment. Lady Yue was gracious, and good, and Miko had woken up weeping at the memory of her beauty...

  
...She had dreamt of the Devil Dragon in Iron, too. Dreams unbecoming of her oaths of purity. And she hadn't wept from them.

  
It was a relief when a shriek broke the air, and the grass around them flattened from the force of its wingbeats.

  
The Devil Dragon dropped her pack, and somehow, Miko's attention focused on how the grains of rice were spilling from the bag, instead of her monster's leap into the air.

  
As the beast's shrieks and the Devil Dragon's roars shattered the air, Miko caught the bag and righted it, pulling it closed. Sighing over the waste of food.

  
She had righted what was within her power. As pathetic as that was. But she was just a young woman, not a slayer, a reaver, a monster, a god.

  
The Devil Dragon cratered into the grass next to her. Growling, she asked as she regained her feet, "How many pieces would you like it in, Mistress? We could have meat with our rice."

  
Before Miko could answer, the winged beast swooped into the Devil Dragon, and the two of them tumbled away.

  
It was, Miko decide, a most chimerical creature. The wings and talons of a great bird of prey, but the head and antlers of a mighty stag. A long tail that moved like an eel's, but covered in feathers. And all of its feathers were a particular greenish blue. Every roll of the fight seemed to reveal a new shade.

  
But the Devil Dragon of Iron was now in her element, and the beast had lost the advantage of its aerial mobility. She had mounted it, locking its wings with her legs, and hauling back on its head with a grip on its antlers. Any second now, the Devil Dragon would rake it across the throat with her talons. Finishing the fight.

  
Miko saw its eyes, dark brown, rolling in panic, and -

  
"Stop!"

  
It took Miko a moment to realize that she'd spoken. The Devil Dragon paused, her talons ready to tear the beast's throat out. She looked at Miko, the battle fury in her eyes dimming. "Mistress?"

  
But Miko turned to address the beast. "Can you understand me?" She thought she saw a glimmer of... something... in its eyes? Hope? Lifting her skirts, Miko hurried closer.

  
The Devil Dragon raised her voice with an incredulous tone, "Mistress!" Her muscles bulged with the effort of restraining the beast.

  
Reaching out her hand, Miko placed it on the beast's brow. Closing her eyes, she focused - _let it speak, let me understand, let me speak, let it understand, let it speak, let me_ -

  
Miko lost herself in the mantra until a frightened voice broke her out of it.

  
"Please! Don't kill me!"

  
Miko opened her eyes, locking her violet gaze on the beast's dark brown eyes. With the sun behind clouds, they almost looked black. "Why are you attacking the village?"

  
"Attacking? I was trying to prove myself!"

  
Miko looked past the beast, and the Devil Dragon gave her a little shrug.

  
"Prove yourself how?"

  
The beast gave a girlish sigh. "To join a pack, you hunt down their weakest members. Thus, having culled their weak, and proven yourself strong, you offer to join them!"

  
Miko blinked a few times. "Is... is that how it works among your people?"

  
It tried to nod, but the Devil Dragon was still holding it by the antlers. After the Devil Dragon tightened her grip, and moved her talons closer, the beast settled for saying, "Obviously."

  
"That is not how we address that situation."

  
"Oh."

  
There was an uncomfortably long pause, as Miko's mind worked furiously. She gathered herself, and asked the beast, "Would you like to join our pack?"

  
The Devil Dragon gave a highly expressive look from behind the beast's head. It said: 'What are you thinking?', albeit with a great deal more profanity.

  
The beast seemed to consider struggling, then asked, "If I say no, will you kill me?"

  
Tracing her talons through the beast's feathers, the Devil Dragon growled, "It would give me the _greatest_ joy."

  
"Then, despite your highly unconventional methodology, I will join your pack."

  
Miko let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. "I must change you somewhat -"

  
The beast interrupted, "Oh, wonderful! I had so wanted to have the hands that the humans sport!"

  
The Devil Dragon let the beast go, rolling off of its back. Rolling her eyes and grumbling.

  
Miko laid her hand on the beast, concentrating on a humanoid shape and letting the idea of the beast fill in the details.

  
She opened her eyes when she felt hands frame her face. The beast was gone, replaced by a statuesque woman with feathery-looking blue-green hair. It almost hid the small antler stubs on her head. "These are great!" She said with a broad grin, wriggling her new fingers against Miko's face.

  
The Devil Dragon seized the beast's wrists and dragged her hands down. "No touching." Miko wasn't sure if it was because some discomfort had shown on her face, or the Devil Dragon was trying to assert her dominance or... if she was feeling jealous. Still holding on, the Devil Dragon dragged their new companion back to the fallen pack. "You need clothes."

  
Miko stared after the two of them, unable to look away. The beast was a little shorter, but that meant nothing so far as callipygian displays. She hadn't kept her tail. Miko trailed behind the two of them, staying at a remove as the Devil Dragon dragged out one of her spare robes and cinched it around the beast's waist.

  
The beast? She needed a name. Clearing her throat, Miko asked, "How should we call you?"

  
Cocking her head, the beast asked. "This is a requirement of your pack?"

  
"Yes." Miko indicated herself. "I am Miko of the Chameleon clan, and that is the Devil Dragon in Iron." Her monster crossed her arms tightly, and Miko briefly forgot what she was talking about.

  
"Oh. Um, those are very fancy names. I should have something less ornamented." Miko surmised that the beast's people were very concerned with status, and that she was convinced that she was the least of their company. Which... was she? She was the newest, but if she had retained the prowess of her beastly form - as the Devil Dragon evidently had - then she could tear Miko to pieces. But unlike the Devil Dragon, she was only bound by her own choices. Of the three of them, she was the most free.

  
"Call me... Peri. Or Pert! Or Peryt! I like all of those."

  
The Devil Dragon bestowed on Miko a look that was filled with suffering. As if to belie her mood, the clouds drifted away from the sun, and the bright light shone down on the three of them.

  
Peryt didn't cast a shadow.

  
Miko remembered Lady Yue's words. _"You may find other companions on the road. Do not shun the Beast With No Shadow, the White Witch, or the Three-Eyed Raven. They will bring their own troubles, but such strength they have to give to your cause."_

  
Wholly unaware of that, Peryt asked brightly, "Where are we going?"

  
Setting her feet back on the Westward path, Miko took a deep breath and began to explain.

* * *

  
_It's okay. I'm not running away. I've got a mission of my own, keeping the rest of RWBY safe._

  
_I'm just on a ship, headed to the furthest corner of the world. Back home. Home-that-was. It isn't._

  
_I'm running into another fight. With people who must hate me. They were my parents. But I threw that away. I told them I hated them._

  
_And here I am, headed back to them. Because I hope they hate Adam, and what the White Fang has become - what I helped turn it into - more than they hate me._

  
_The enemy of my enemy..._

  
Blake sighed. 

  
_Breathe in, hold it, breathe out._

  
_I've got a lot of nights before I get there. Don't overthink it._ _I'm not running away._

  
_But... I still feel like a coward._

  
_I need to do more._

  
She reached up to touch her ribbon. The uncomfortable tension on her ears, all the hiding she'd done at Beacon. All because she could pass for human.

  
_It won't help me on Menagerie._ _And I'm tired of hiding._

  
_I'm not running away. But if I try to hide who I am any more... I will be._

  
She saved her work, and closed her scroll. And her eyes.

  
_I'll think about it more in the morning._


End file.
